Mode of sawing bolts fob staves



UNITED 'sTATEs PATENT OFFICE.

BARNET MCKEAGE, OF

ACCOTINK, VIRGINIA.

MODE 0F SAWING BOLTS FOR STAVES.

Specification of Letters Patent No.

T o all whom t may concern Be it known that I, BARNET MCKEAGE, of Accotink, in the county of F airfaX and State of Virginia, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Forming the Segments c c from a Log of Vood from which the Blocks to be Cut into Staves are to bev Formed; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, making a part of this specification.

Figure l, is a top view of a machine employed in the process of forming said segments; Fig. 2, is an end view of the same, and Fig. 3, is a plan represent-ing the improved shape of said segments, and the stave blocks d, d, formed from them, when ready for steaming preparatory to being operated upon by the cleaving knife for converting them into staves.

Similar letter indicate like parts in all the figures.

I have discovered that in cutting staves from steamed timber, good and smooth staves cannot be formed except when the knife passes through the wood in an oblique direction to radial lines passing from the heart of the tree.

My invention consists in sawing out the segments from which the blocks for staves are to be cut, of such a shape that one of their sides will be at the proper degree of Obliquity, to radial lines from the heart of the tree, to cause smooth staves to be formed from the blocks, sawed from said segments, when the ordinary stave cutting knife is made to pass through the blocks in a direction parallel with said inclined surface of the segments. I iirst saw a section A, from a log, of the proper length for the staves, and strike a governing circle e, around its heart, of the proper size to guide in the formation of the segments from which the stave blocks are to be formed. This circle must vary in size from four to twelve inches; when the grain of the wood 11,900, dated November 7, 1854.

is straight, the circle may be smaller, and when the grain of the wood is winding, the circle must be larger. Experience will soon teach the practical operator the proper size to form said governing circle. The log A, is then placed upon a suitable carriage to be sawed into segments c, c, whose sides must be tangential to the governing circle e, around the heart of said log. The said carriage must be combined with a saw B, in such a manner as to admit of such an adjustment of the saw, or the carriage, as to bring the saw into a position, as the log is turned around, parallel with either of the tangential lines drawn from the governing circle e, on the end of the log. The saw may then be put in motion, and the carriage and log be operated in a similar manner to that practiced in the sawing of radial clapboards from logs, until the log is converted into the segments c, c. The segments 0, c, having been thus formed, they are then sawed, by any suitable machine, into blocks d, (Z, of suitable thickness to be steamed and cut into staves. The staves must be cut from and parallel with that edge of each block which is at right angles to the sides thereof; said blocks being so sawed as to cause their sides to be at right angles to the inner side of each segment, or theside near est to the diameter of the log.

What I claim as my invention and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

The improved form of the segmentsfrom which blocks for staves are to be cut, to wit: the sides of said segments being tangential `to a circle around' and concentric with the heart of the log from which said segments are formed, substantially as herein set forth.

The above specification of my improvement in the formation of bolt-s from which staves are to be cut, signed and witnessed this 20th day of September 1854.

B. MCKEAGE. Witnesses:

Z. C. ROBBINS, G. W. ADAMS. 

